Growing a Generation of COIN Professionals Because of War - Assignment Example

Are we growing a generation of COIN professionals at the expense of our real war fighting capabilities? The end of the Cold war arguably implementeda new world order and the creation of a multi-tiered system in contrast to the US/Soviet bipolar system (Waltz, 1995). Waltz further argues that by the 1990 bipolarity was coming to an end and predicted the emergency of a multi-polar system in line with Hobbes view of foreign policy that the international system is technically anarchical because there is no enforcement authority, which creates a complex myriad of multi-polar institutions and interstate relations (Waltz, 1995). Moreover, the Cold War aftermath removed pre-existing regional controls and heightened conflict zones with the incidence of civil wars doubling (Wulf, 2004). This has resulted in a new political order in the international arena with novel conflict scenarios, thereby creating a demand for military manpower and expertise. The redefinition of these security strategies has left gaps in the core functions of the armed forces forcing the British Army to reconsider pre-existing military doctrines. In particular, the changing nature of warfare is highlighted by the rise in insurgency and global terrorism. As such, contemporary warfare is becoming increasingly significant, changing armed forces around the world and the ways wars are fought. Indeed, the Geneva Centre for the Democratic Armed Forces Report “Privatising Security: Law, Practice and Government: Private Military and Security Companies”(The Geneva Report) (2007) opines that “as new forms of armed conflict multiply and spread, they cause the lines between public and private, government and society, military and civilian to become blurred” (The Geneva Report, 2007:3). This blurring of the distinctions in traditional warfare has created debate regarding the contemporary relevance of the manoeuverist doctrine, further fuelled by the British Army’s formal adoption of an official counter-insurgency doctrine, which was published in Part Ten of its Field Manual in 2001. Alderson comments that the “pamphlet is the latest in a line of Army publications that have wrestled with the challenges of applying military force to meet the threat of revolutionary war and insurgency thrown up by the Cold War” (Alderson, 2007). This has created polarised argument with regard to whether or not we are growing a generation of Counter Insurgency Operations (COIN) professionals at the expense of our real war fighting capabilities, which is the focus of this paper. It is submitted in this paper, that to assert that we are becoming a generation of COIN professionals at expense of “real” war fighting capabilities is inherently dogmatic in its perception of war and ignores the complex and changing nature of warfare in the current international framework. Moreover, it is submitted that the very changing nature of warfare arguably renders it necessary to adapt and develop army doctrine to address the rising reality of insurgency operations. To this end, it is submitted that the British official counter-insurgency operation doctrine is merely a necessary extension of existing army doctrine as opposed to a rendering pre-existing doctrines obsolete. Indeed, it has been argued that a central failure of the Army in addressing rising insurgency in problematic territories such as Iraq and Afghanistan has been that counter insurgency operations have not been considered core Army activities, with a focus on conventional “real war” capabilities (Nagl, 2002; Alderson, 2007). Furthermore, Nagl comments on the British Army’s history of being “an instrument of limited war, designed to achieve limited goals at limited cost” and as a consequence, an “its historical focus was almost unfailingly and exclusively to be a conventional warfighting organisation” (Nagl, 2002). Additionally, Nagl undertakes a comparative analysis of the restrictive US Army approach and British Army approach as inherently adaptable and indicates that in the US Army “even under the pressures for change presented by ongoing military conflict a strong organisational culture can prohibit learning the lessons of the present and can even prevent the organisation’s acknowledging that its current policies are anything other than completely successful” (Nagl, 2002). In contrast Nagl posits that the culture of the British Army encourages a rapid response to changing situations, which is not enabled under the American approach. This further supports the argument that the British Army adoption of the counter insurgency doctrine highlights the ability of British Army strategy to remain relevant and adapt to the realities of contemporary warfare. As such, it is further submitted that to suggest that COIN strategy is being developed at the expense of real war fighting capabilities ignores the important reality that addressing insurgency and non-state sector terrorism should be considered as part of “real war fighting capabilities”. Therefore COIN strategy and real war fighting capabilities should not be considered mutually exclusive. This is further evidenced by the proliferation of the use of Private Military Companies and Private Security Companies (PMCs and PSCs), which have become a global phenomenon in insurgent riddled territories such as Iraq and Afghanistan. For example, the change to the international political order with the proliferation of state and non-state terrorism has led to the complex interaction of factors requiring private military and security services (Avant, 2000). Indeed the situation in Afghanistan, Somalia, Darfur and Iraq has fuelled the demand for military interventions (Barstow, 2004). The jurisdictional problems at international law caused by trans-national terrorist groups, drugs cartel groups, rogue states and non-states sectors, has created an appurtenant need for privatisation and commercialisation of war due to burdens placed on national defence systems (Bayling & Shearing, 2001). The conflicts in Kosovo and Iraq are prime examples of wars supported by civilian contractors with PSCs playing a key role in the aftermath (Barstow, 2004). It is estimated that the US, UK, Canadian and Australian militaries would struggle to wage war without the aid of PMCs, with the proportion of contracted personnel in Iraq estimated at being 10 times larger than during the first Gulf war (Dobbs, 2003). Indeed, the General Accounting Office of the US estimated that in addition to 5,200 US government civilians, there were 9,200 contractor employees employed in support of the US forces to provide maintenance for high tech equipment in addition to other services in Iraq (Campbell, 2000; Dobbs, 2003). This rise has shifted the dynamics of war and indeed the Geneva Report highlighted the fact that conventional military forces were struggling to adapt to the changing nature of insurgent warfare and global terrorism (The Geneva Report 2007). The collapse of the Soviet Union marked the end of the “First Nuclear Age” (Walton and Gray, 2007: 210). Coupled with the downsizing of the military post the Cold War, the role of the PMC and PSC came to prominence feeding supply and demand as new threats emerged, thereby fuelling the private military and security sector taking up the lost military manpower and address gaps in non-core activities (Campbell 2000). The increasing financial constraints on western military forces, led to a risk management strategy of developing leaner and more efficient forces, which was concurrently followed by the proliferation of regional conflicts (Walton & Gray, 2007). The disadvantage of this was impact on the response rate of Western military forces, which were now relying on core activities and therefore the non-core activities became outsourced to PMCs. The strain on military resources highlighted by the use of PMCs to address gaps in COIN strategy further supports the argument that the British Army counter insurgency directive is necessary to address gaps in Army training initiatives in context of contemporary warfare. This is further supported when considering the potential risks posed to military strategy by the use of PMCs in such conflict zones. The risks are variable, particularly in hostile states such as Iraq, where insurgents target combatants and private contractors with equal measure (Scarhill, 2008). Moreover the risk of failure requires every contract to necessarily undertake a risk assessment. Additionally, the military combatant will take an oath for their country, whereas private contractors are often seeking profit over any ideological gain (Pelton, 2007). As such, the employment is inherently problematic as the civilian contractor work ethic will be motivated by a completely different agenda to the military fraternity spirit. To this end, “the profit motive and the inflexibility of contractor personnel can also contribute to their lack of commitment to the overall objectives of the military mission. While acceptable levels of services are provided when the tempo of the operation is relatively moderate, there is little doubt that the quality of service and overall readiness of the unit will go down as the situation deteriorates and the contractor experience difficulty” (Geneva Report, p.46; Pelton, 2007). These problems are further exacerbated by the fact that private contractors operate outside the parameters of the military hierarchy (Singer, 2004). At their core, military command centres address planning, synchronisation and management of violence with the destruction force potential being staggering. However, the armed contractors operate outside this and are not co-ordinated with military operations and report to their corporate bosses. (Singer, 2004). Even a contract with the military will not necessarily include details such as precise routes and times for contractor convoys or frequencies and call signs for contractor personnel (Singer, 2004). Therefore the potential for conflict of interest is ripe. For example, in Fallujah, contractors are not under any obligation to inform military commanders that they are on the way and contractors are not required to report to military command, which has led to situations where contractors have fought off insurgent attacks on military headquarters that military officials have learned of earlier with conflicting orders (Singer, 2004). Moreover, the military planning will involve strategy for damage limitation, minimisation of civilian casualties and collateral damage (Avant, 2000). Additionally, the general concept of war is not to involve civilians, which creates a paradoxical situation where PMCs and PSCs are brought in to support military operations (Bourne, 2004). Whilst this provides support, the use of civilian combatants arguably undermines military freedom and flexibility, which is essential in effective logistical performance in insurgent warfare (Bourne, 2004). As such, an additional force structure to protect contractors arguably undermines the purpose of the contractors to support military operations: “The additional force structure will be come especially critical in a situation with asymmetrical threats or when contract personnel are directly supporting the warfighters and moving with lead combat elements” (Geneva Report, 2007: 48). This is therefore particularly pertinent to the need for the military itself to adapt and develop its own doctrine and methods to address counter insurgency operations at an official level rather than rely on ad hoc responsive measures, which could potentially be impacted by the unregulated use of PMCs. Moreover, General Sir Richard Dannatt highlights the point that “the Mission hasn’t changed, but the situation and circumstances around it have- and so a new plan is needed. We believe that our experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan and elsewhere have called us to question whether our previous assumptions regarding current practice and future development have been right” (Dannatt, 2008). To this end, the inherent flexibility of British Army doctrines as extrapolated by Nagl clearly enables strategy to remain relevant to address contemporary military needs, which in turn promotes “real war fighting” capabilities as opposed to merely becoming COIN professionals. To this end the British Army’s official adoption of a counter insurgency operation clearly moves towards the Army’s doctrine and strategy remaining relevant, which Dannatt argues is imperative for the British Army. Importantly, Dannatt argues that the adoption of COIN doctrine and strategy in British Army doctrines does not need to be seen as exclusive, but is rather evidence of an evolutionary approach. Indeed, Dannatt opines that: “I am convinced that Clausewitz’s philosophy on the need to be constantly guided by the political aim remains extremely relevant” (Dannatt, 2008). Clausewitz is a leading theorist on the manoeuvre military doctrine, nevertheless Dannatt refers to Clausewitz’s express argument that warfare is rooted in political motivations and that this means that the very existence of warfare will inextricably be shaped by politics (Clausewitz). On this basis, Dannatt argues that it is implied in the manoeuvre doctrine that the military policy will change as it will be inherently dependent on politics. Therefore, if we consider this in light of the context of the current political international order and complex nature of warfare, in order to ensure that British Army doctrine remains relevant, it inherently requires development to address the rise in insurgency operations. On this basis, the adoption of COIN doctrine clearly reconcilable with the traditional British Army manoeuvre doctrine. In general terms, the Counter Insurgency Manual highlights the use of minimum force, the rule of law, the importance of intelligence led operations, civil military co-operation and tactical adaptability and agility (Alderson, 2007). Alderson further comments that whilst the British military had struggled with adoption of formal counter insurgency measures, it was the situations in Iraq and Afghanistan that prompted the British Army Doctrine Committee to acknowledge the need to review counter insurgency (Alderson, 2007). Alderson further argues that the historic nature of British Army Doctrine highlights that the counter insurgency doctrine is merely a natural progression of the British Army doctrine’s evolutionary approach to address war fighting capabilities accordance to the circumstance. This is also supported by Fuller’s arguments regarding the underlying basis of British Army doctrine: “The Doctrine, to be sound must be based on the principles of war, and to be effective must be elastic enough to admit to mutation in accordance with change in circumstance”. Moreover, since 2001, it appears that the British Army doctrine has developed towards a body of joint doctrines, simultaneously addressing the planning, execution and sustenance of military campaigns (Alderson, 2007). Indeed, the revised Army Doctrine of 2007 includes these joint doctrines and therefore to this end preserves the manoeuvrist approach in line with Dannatt’s arguments. Moreover, in incorporating the joint doctrines into a tactical operational approach that directly correlates with counter insurgency campaigns, it highlights the relevance of the British Army Doctrines in contemporary warfare in actually addressing real war fighting capabilities as opposed to negating them. For example, Alderson highlights example of the publication of the Comprehensive Approach to Strategy, which posits the effects based approach to planning, and “a doctrine note on Countering Irregular Activity highlights the wider aspects of insurgency at the operational level to integrate the Army’s doctrine within the emerging framework” (Alderson, 2007:7). By analogy to early works of leading military theorists Thompson and Kitson in addressing Communist counter insurgency, they posited the following central principles of counter insurgency central to the development of counter insurgency military doctrine: 1) Political Primacy and political aims; 2) Co-ordinated government machinery; 3) Intelligence and information gathering; 4) Separating insurgents from support systems; 5) Neutralising insurgents; and 6) Long term insurgency planning (Kitson, 1971; Thompson, 1966). However, in 2001, the British Army asserted that “the British have not developed a general antidote to the problem of insurgency…Not only is the threat changing, but so too is the environment in which an insurgent must be confronted” (Army Code 71749, 2001). The Army Code 71749 goes further in describing the essence of a viable counter insurgency operation and comments that its success is dependent on acknowledging that “theories, strategies and tactics come and go depending on the circumstances or merely intellectual fashion (the five main British COIN manuals published since 1949 have included several different lists of principles). What remains a constant is the fact that insurgency and counter-insurgency are essentially about a battle to win and hold popular support, both at home and in the theatre of operations”(Army Code 71749). However, this has created doctrinal tension with the need to address the reality of insurgency and the bipolarity of combat with the need to preserve historical doctrine and what military strategy needs to be: “The key to producing usable doctrine is a thorough and appropriate analysis of the problem. This is just what the Army did when it first put its mind to writing an army doctrine in the 1990s” (Alderson, 2007). This is further evidenced by the changing nature threats requiring military intervention, the complexity of which is further compounded by the changing nature of terrorism as a phenomenon post September 11. For example, there is significant ambiguity as to whether “terrorism” is an international crime for the purposes of enforceability under customary international law and treaty provisions to fall within the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court (ICC) (Banchik, 2003). Moreover, with regard to the concept of “state terrorism”, the term “terrorism” has no agreed definition and state terror is often applied to cover the conduct of official government groups (Poland, 1995). However, whilst these are official groups, the complex governmental and political infrastructures of states such as Sudan and Ethiopia for example, clearly mask the subliminal controlling influence of groups involved in terrorist activities, which also fall within the concept of state sponsored terrorism (Jalata, 2005). Indeed, Jalata points to the fact that both Sudan and Ethiopia utilise “state terrorism as political tools for creating and maintaining the confluence of identity, religion, and political power” along with Jalata’s assertion of “undergovernmental” forces within these states which has facilitated “ethnonational cleansing, which has been disguised rhetorically as a move towards national self-determination and democracy” (Jalata, 2005). Indeed, with regard to Sudan, the UN Security Council views the totalitarian regime as supporting non-state sectors such as Janjaweed’s policy of ethnic cleansing of the indigenous population of Darfur (Jalata, 2005). This further highlight the close correlation between state and non-state terrorism as the state acquiescence of non-state terrorist activities clearly points towards state sponsored terrorism de facto. As such, the central differentiating factor between state sponsored terrorism and non-state terrorism appears to be the state sanction of the terrorist activity, whether by official means or by stealth (Primoratz, 2004). Furthermore, the term is often utilised to describe conduct of various governments in directly organising violent acts in other states, which often creates problem with international law with regard to the legitimate use of force (Ackerman, 2003). As such, Primoratz argues that the political backdrop of such states often provide fertile ground for insurgency operations (Primoratz, 2004). To this end, Alderson argues that an Army doctrine that fails to address counter insurgency operations is outdated by “being too redolent of fifty-year old rubber plantations, the dusty jebel and the seething, violent souk” (Alderson, 2007:8). As such, the move towards acknowledging counter insurgency in the Army doctrine is necessary and essential to acknowledging change, which is argued to be the “driving force for doctrine development” (Alderson, 2007: 9). As such, the official adoption of a counter insurgency doctrine does not constitute a move towards COIN professionals at the expense of real war fighting capabilities but rather a necessary requirement in ensuring the purpose of army doctrines to address contemporary needs. For example, in the later part of the 1990s, Army doctrine was not motivated by counter insurgency as previous COIN operational focus in Northern Ireland was moving towards peace support (Alderson, 2007). Alternatively, the complexities of Iraq and Afghanistan insurgency operations were not envisaged when troops went in on a prima facie attempt at regime change liberation. As such, whilst the previous approach may served its purpose, Alderson extrapolates that “it is important to continue to acknowledge that, whilst there are lots of crossovers between Belfast and Basra, every campaign has its own unique problems, that require bespoke strategic, operational and tactical solutions” (Alderson, 2007:9). This point highlights the overriding purpose of any Army doctrine, which is further enabled by the flexible nature of British Army doctrine. This is further necessary in the contemporary threats faced by global insurgencies and the global terrorism phenomenon, where the traditional “minimum force” approach is just not suitable (Galula, 2006). Indeed, Galula highlights the inherent difficulty of addressing the complex motivations of insurgency as “no amount of tactics and technique can compensate for the counterinsurgent’s ideological handicap” (Galula, 2006:8). On this basis, it is argued that the adoption of an official counter insurgency doctrine is a welcome move in acknowledging the veracity of the insurgent threat on a wider scale. Moreover, it is submitted that the changing nature of warfare and conflict clearly requires the constant development and review of Army doctrines to ensure that military strategy meets its overriding objective and remain relevant. To this end, express counter insurgency moves within military strategy should not be viewed as being part of a replacement doctrine at the expense of real war fighting capabilities. Such a narrow view of military doctrine ignores the reality that insurgency operations are a reality in warfare and therefore counter insurgency operations are vital to preserve and maintain real war fighting capabilities in order to avoid the pitfalls in the harsh lessons learned in Iraq and Afghanistan. BIBLIOGRAPHY Alderson, A. (2007). Revising the British Army Counter Insurgency Doctrine. Available at www.rusi.org Accessed 26 February 2009. Army Code 71749 Army Field Manual Volume 1 Combined Arms Operations Part 10 Avant, D. (20000. Privatising Military training. Foreign policy in focus. Interhemispheric Resource Center and Institute for Policy Studies, Volume 5 No. 17 June 2000. Mira Banchik (2003) “The International Criminal Court and Terrorism”. 3 Peace, Conflict and Development Barstow (2004). Security Companies: Shadow Soldiers in Iraq. New York Times, 19 April. Bayley, D.H., & Shearing, C. D (2001). The New Structure of policing: description, conceptualisation and research agenda. Washington D. C. National Institute of Justice. Bourne, M (2004). The privatisation of security. Center for International Cooperation and Security, Department of Peace Studies. University of Bradford, 2 June 2004. Campbell, G. (2000). Contractors on the Battlefield. The Ethics of Paying Civilians to Enter Harm’s Way and Requiring Soldiers to Depend on Them. Springfield 2000 at www.usafa.af/mil Clausewitz, C. V. “On War”, edited and translated by Michael Howard & Peter Paret (1976) (eds) Princeton University Press. Galula, D. (2006). Counter-insurgency Warfare: Theory and Practice. Westport, CT: Praeger. General Danatt, R. (2008). The Land Environment - Moving Towards 2018. Available at www.rusi.org Accessed 26 February 2009. Dobbs, M. (2003). “Halliburton’s Iraq Contracts exceed $1.7billion”, in the Washington Post, 28 August 2003. J. F. C. Fuller (1926) (eds). The Foundations of the Science of War. London: Hutchinson & Co. Christine Gray, (1999). “International Law and the Use of Force”, (Oxford University Press, 2000). Asafa Jalata (2005). State Terrorism and Globalisation: The Cases of Ethiopia and Sudan. International Journal of Comparative Sociology. Volume 46, No. 1-2-, 79-102. Kitson, F. (1977). Bunch of Five. London: Faber Press Nagl, J. (2002). Counterinsurgency lessons from Malaya and Vietnam. Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife. Praeger Publishers. Pelton, R. Y. (2007). Licensed to Kill: Hired Guns in the War on Terror. Three Rivers Press. Igor Primoratz (2004). Terrorism: The Philosophical Issues. Palgrave Macmillan. Scarhill, J. (2008). Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army. Nation Books Revised Edition. Singer, (2004). War, Profits, and the Vacuum of Law: Privatised Military Firms and International Law. Columbia Journal of Transnational Law. Volume 42, pp. 541-549. Thompson, R. (1966). Defeating Communist Insurgency. The Lessons of Malaya and Vietnam. New York: Frederick A. Praeger. Walton, C.D. & Gray, C.S. (2007). The Second Nuclear Age: Nuclear Weapons in the Twenty-First Century. In Strategy and Contemporary World, edited by John Baylis, Waltz, Kenneth. (1995). More May Be Better. In The Spread of Nuclear Weapons: A Debate, by Scott D. Sagan and Kenneth N. Waltz. W. W. Norton & Company: New York Wulf, H. (2004). Security Sector Reform in Developing and Transitional Countries. Berghof Handbook Series. Read More